Oo-la-lalique

Style And Innovation See A Crystal Dynasty Through Three Generations

January 14, 1996|By Mary Daniels, Tribune Staff Writer.

The 60-year-old Frenchwoman sitting off the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel, wearing a classic beige silk frock and sipping champagne from a flute, looks like many of the distinguished travelers strolling about the floor.

She is quite extraordinary, however, as she possesses a fabulous variation on the King Midas touch: Everything she touches turns to crystal.

The crystal--exquisite, satiny and sensuous--takes the form of vases and bowls, perfume flacons, boxes, statuettes and even furniture.

Queen of a glittering crystal and glass empire, Marie-Claude Lalique is the scion of a dynasty created by her grandfather Rene Lalique and continued by her father, Marc Lalique.

She not only directs more than 500 people who form the family firm, she also is the company's sole designer.

"There is no other crystal company in the world with a president and designer who shares the name of the company," says Madame Lalique, who was passing through Chicago last fall during her travels to new markets for her famous firm--taking her to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States. "That is a great responsibility," she adds.

The name Lalique has been prestigious and well-known since 1925, when Rene Lalique's sensational contributions to the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris won him global renown and patronage from the most wealthy and celebrated clients of that era.

"For over a hundred years, Lalique has been a driving force in the design market," says Barbara Deisroth, director of Sotheby's 20th Century Works of Art department, which held a major sale last month of early Lalique jewelry, glass vases and objects of the late '30s from the collection of Chicagoans Marvin Kagan and Diane Austin. (Among the best sellers were a molded and frosted cire perdue pitcher, which sold for $244,500, and "Archers," a molded and frosted teal blue glass vase, which went for $23,000.)

"Unlike Tiffany, Galle and Daum, which went out of fashion and then came back in the '70s as a collectible, Lalique has never faltered. It has always been in fashion and kept up with the times," adds Deisroth, who often lectures on Lalique.

"The Lalique firm has always been very innovative," she says. "They've got great style. They've continued in this tradition. It's in the genes."

While Marie-Claude's career started in sync with family traditions, she has left her own personal mark by heading off in dynamic new design directions.

For one, she brought her love of color to glass and launched collections that combine the sparkle of translucent crystal with deep jewel tones of blue, green, amber, purple and red.

"I've always been very lucky that I've always had a strong sense of color. I observe nature a great deal and see colors, all very natural," she says. She has been especially inspired by the flowers in her garden in Provence.

"My grandfather worked exclusively in color," Lalique explains, "whereas my father removed color almost completely from our collection. In combining color with our new crystal, I have tried to attain unprecedented effect."

Here's where the reputation of the enfant terrible began to appear, she says with some amusement. But the enfant terrible is not out of spite, she adds, "but because I like to look ahead and see beyond today."

Changing course

Marie-Claude Lalique took over in 1977, when her father died. She had never intended to work in the family business. Inspired by her Aunt Suzanne Lalique, who designed for the French national theater, la Comedie Francaise, Marie-Claude intended to pursue theatrical design.

It was her father's wish, however, that his only daughter succeed him, and he challenged her to take a more active role in the company. In the early 1960s, Marc asked Marie-Claude to design a dove for the Lalique collection. She purchased a white dove along the Seine and, setting it free in her apartment, sketched the bird in motion. The results remain in the collection today.

Marie-Claude worked as her father's collaborator until his death. She has since proven that she has not defaulted on the legacy.

Color and perfection

When she took over, she adds, "the company only did very clear crystal. I wanted to bring the color back. It was very difficult for the company to be willing to do so. I was very insistent it was the way to go. When I first reintroduced color, the serious collectors of Lalique responded by saying, `These will be the really serious objects in the collection,' "she says.

Is she a perfectionist? "Oui, terrible," she responds. "I seem to sometimes bore people with my perfectionism, but . . . I will never allow any object of crystal or jewelry to be made unless I have approved it. Sometimes people tell me something is not possible and I ask them to make it possible. Just pushing people a little further gets results," she says.